Letters to a young poet

Synopsis

Rainer Maria Rilke’s famous letters to aspiring poet Franz Kappus are a clarion call to artists everywhere. Maurice Ravel’s single, masterful string quartet was written in the same year, in the same city, and at the same moment in his life. As if that weren’t enough, the lost letters of ‘the young poet,’ Franz Kappus, were discovered in a groundbreaking literary discovery in 2020, allowing us to read this famous correspondence for the first time. Rounding out these mirrored mentors is Debussy’s single string quartet, mirroring Ravel’s in the way that Rilke mirrors the young poet. In a new groundbreaking work of concert-theatre, Bill Barclay has dramatically presented this friendship for the very first time, fully staged with string quartet and projections, and showcasing what life requires of us to be truly alive.

Both born in 1875, Ravel and Rilke wrote their iconic works at the age of 28…